Oh, you rode that skateboard so hard it almost hurt. It didn't even make sense when you hopped on for the first time. First off, it hatched out of an egg. Then, next thing you know, you can't stop. All you can do is slow down a little in order to better time your jumps. What kind of sick, twisted person makes a skateboard/vehicle upgrade that causes a game to become more difficult? You know... I have no idea.
But they worked at Hudson Soft, that's for sure. Adventure Island was the spawn of Hudson Soft and it saw its initial release in Japan during 1986. The title did exceptionally well. Well enough, in fact, to give the publishers the right to label the North American boxart with the tag 'over 1 million sold in japan'. And man-oh-man the boxart. What kind of crazy world do these folks live in where the bad guy is a giant rhino with a cape, his underlings are an odd array of wild beasts and the princess is some sort of weird boobed, Cleopatra haired lady? This was Adventure Island, and if the timing were any different for the relase it would have reminded me of the Island of Dr. Moreau.
Many have compared the gameplay of Adventure Island to be that of a Super Mario Bros. clone; and I'll basically agree. Except the gameplay in Adventure Island is much more difficult. The mechanics feel faster, more slippery and not as forgiving. Jumps have to be more precise, timing has to be handled efficiently and running just feels different. I won't label one as better than the other, they're only similar in form. 2-d platformers. Our hero's tomahawk can be compared to Mario's fireball, his fairy is Mario's star and his skateboard is unlike anything we've ever played with. But that's Adventure Island!
Of all the things that make this game something that I'll always remember, of all the ridiculous pig-people baddies and absurd snakes that shoot other, smaller snakes at you, the most memorable side of Adventure Island is the music. I leave you with this clip from a bit of the game. While you'll be able to enjoy a new version of Adventure Island for WiiWare soon, you could probably *ahem* use a search engine to play the original somewhere online. Virtual NES?
